


Courage

by PendulumChanges



Category: Political RPF - US 21st c.
Genre: 2020 US Presidential Campaign, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Homophobia, M/M, Political Campaigns, otp: wait that's my word
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:04:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21625486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PendulumChanges/pseuds/PendulumChanges
Summary: Sadly, the threats were not unexpected.
Relationships: Chasten Buttigieg/Pete Buttigieg, Chasten Buttigieg/Peter Buttigieg, Chasten Glezman/Pete Buttigieg, Pete Buttigieg/Chasten Buttigieg, Pete Buttigieg/Chasten Glezman, Peter Buttigieg/Chasten Buttigieg
Comments: 12
Kudos: 34





	Courage

**Author's Note:**

> Please see the end for additional notes and links. Many thanks to all of the amazing writers putting incredible Pete/Chasten fics out into the world, especially [PocketTreatPete](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pockettreatpete/pseuds/pockettreatpete/works?fandom_id=74298), [Chastened](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chastened/pseuds/Chastened/works?fandom_id=74298), [tulipwriter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tulipwriter/pseuds/tulipwriter/works?fandom_id=74298), [elliebird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elliebird/pseuds/elliebird/works?fandom_id=74298), and [foreveralive_foreverforward](https://archiveofourown.org/users/foreveralive_foreverforward/pseuds/foreveralive_foreverforward/works?fandom_id=74298), who have written some of my favorites.

Sadly, the threats were not unexpected.

Pete had gotten them sporadically since coming out in 2015. They were nothing more than words back then, easily ignored. Asinine comments were regularly left on his and Chasten’s social media accounts. Condemnations composed on paper were sometimes mailed to Pete’s office on the 14th floor of the County-City Building. Occasionally insults were shouted in their direction, both by protesters at official events and more frequently by people in cars who felt the need to try to belittle them while they were out walking the dogs together. There was obviously some homophobia and hostility out there, but not enough that Pete ever expected real world violence. He'd never felt the need to have security with him at events in South Bend. Over the years, he and Chasten had grown accustomed to the baseless threats and went about their lives without fear. As soon as Pete declared his candidacy for President of the United States, things changed.

The threats were surprising in their ferocity.

They were still just words, but words with an intense hatred behind them, beyond anything they had expected. As they had geared up for the official campaign launch, they'd tried to prepare themselves mentally for the vitriol that they knew could come their way. But over the summer, the shear volume of "ugly mail," as Anne had christened it, was shocking. And much of it was meant to serve a specific purpose - to stop Pete from running. The people sending the threats wanted to scare him and Chasten into quitting and giving up, into repenting and hiding. To stop them from “flaunting” their “lifestyle.” But he and Chasten were stronger and smarter than those who'd sent the threats. They refused to stop being who they were and they would never quit the race or change their strategy because some homophobes tried to get to them. So with some of the money their generous supporters invested in the campaign, they hired a very discrete, but very competent, security team.

But the threats only worsened.

By the time the Liberty and Justice Dinner rolled around in November, the security team was staying very close. On the march from the rally to the dinner, they flanked Pete and Chasten and their parents, earpieces in place, eyes darting back and forth, constantly assessing the danger posed by every person in the vicinity. The staff at headquarters had been sorting the good mail from the bad and an entire team of interns was tasked with scanning Twitter and Instagram and Facebook (and the other, even less-regulated reaches of the internet) for anything that seemed like it should be brought to the security team's attention. Direct threats from identifiable sources were being passed to the FBI and the Secret Service as well, who would make the call as to when Pete's candidacy was strong enough and the threats legitimate enough to take over from their private security team.

Chasten and Pete stayed strong, but the strain was evident. Pete was less relaxed in public than he had been at the beginning of the year. In Q&As, Chasten was struggling to hold back his honest confessions about how hard life on the trail really was. Then came the second week of November.

These new threats were real. They were specific. They were actionable. And they were terrifying.

Chasten was supposed to be spending a few days off the trail while Pete was traveling across New Hampshire, going all in on their first everything-on-the-record bus tour of the state. But as soon as Pete was briefed on the situation, he asked his staff to get Chasten to New Hampshire. Immediately. He wanted to tell Chasten the details himself, in person. And he needed him close. He needed him safe.

Pete's text had said simply, "Need you back out here with me. Team will send you travel plans shortly." They'd agreed early on that if it got to be too much, if too many days had passed since they’d seen each other, if the distance was getting to either of them, plans could be changed and they could always ask to be brought back together in the same city whenever they needed to be. They just had to say the word.

So that Saturday evening, the 9th, Chasten was a little surprised to find himself heading back out onto the trail, but not upset that he would be crashing into his husband in yet another hotel room in just a few hours time. The pace of the campaign and the pressure on Pete had been steadily increasing, so he assumed Pete just needed something to grab hold of. He needed Chasten to be that rock in the center of the river as the rest of the world flowed around them, if only for a little while before they headed out separately to different parts of the country again.

But when Chasten landed in New Hampshire it was immediately clear that this was different. As they were taxiing to the terminal, he got a text from Mike letting him know a new security team member would be meeting him at the gate. Mike getting involved in security, down in the weeds enough to be texting him personally to tell him where security would meet him? Not normal. Chasten’s palms began to sweat and his thoughts began to swirl. As he exited the jet bridge, the “security team member” introduced himself to Chasten as a member of the Secret Service. Not. Normal. Chasten’s heart was racing. He had so many questions. As he and his aide walked down the concourse, Chasten slowly realized that there wasn’t just one agent, but at least five or six that he could spot, fanning out around him. NOT NORMAL. He exited the airport, flanked by two agents, who hustled them into a waiting car. 

He called Peter immediately.

“Hi love, are you on your way?” Anyone else would say Peter sounded normal, but Chasten was not just anyone.

“Peter, what in the world is going on? This is insane. I’m with the Secret Service. The _Secret Service_, Peter.” Then more quietly, “I’m scared.”

“It’s alright. It’s going to be alright. You’re close. You’ll be with me in about 10 minutes. We’re in a hotel near the airport. Just hold on and I’ll explain when you get here.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Neither of them hung up. Neither of them said anything else. Chasten could hear Pete’s breathing and the muffled voices of his team in the background, coming quietly over the line. Pete didn’t speak to them. He just listened to the hum of the road passing beneath the car, bringing Chasten closer and closer.

Then, “I think we’re pulling up out front now.”

Pete hung up without saying anything at all.

An agent opened the door for him and Chasten climbed out of the car, his whole body trembling with adrenaline. He could feel the urgency of the agents, their intensity, their desire to get him inside, so he walked quickly through the doors into the lobby. With a firm hand on his shoulder, an agent led him straight to the elevators. Without the sound of Pete breathing in his ear anymore, he felt like he was edging toward a panic attack.

The elevator doors opened and Chasten had barely stepped out before Pete was there, wrapping him in a fierce, desperate hug, so much like that first one in Berlin when Pete finally caught up to him after the bomb scare on the plane, that Chasten, instead of feeling calmed by the reunion, was suddenly even more alarmed by all that was happening. Lis and Mike and Saralena were all in the hallway behind Pete, near the door of a room that Pete had clearly just burst out of, guarded by yet another Secret Service agent, who was trying to get them all to go back inside, Pete included.

Chasten let himself be herded down the hall and into the room. The shades were drawn and the few lamps that were on barely lit the drab room or the extremely serious-looking, grey-haired woman standing ramrod straight, waiting for them. Chasten sat down next to Pete at the foot of the bed.

In the end, it wasn’t Pete who explained everything to him, but this woman, the lead of their new Secret Service detail, Agent Maxwell. She laid it all out for Chasten, who listened with a surreal sense of detachment as it was explained to him exactly what these monsters were threatening to do to him - not to Pete, not to the senior staff, not to their organizers or volunteers, thank god - but specifically to him. Lis was uncharacteristically quiet. Mike rested a solid, reassuring hand on Chasten’s shoulder. Saralena sat nearby, looking grim.

Pete was gripping Chasten’s hand hard, in both of his own.

As the extent of these new threats was made clear to him, he felt his entire worldview shift. He recognized, in the midst of a maelstrom of emotions, that this was a defining moment in their lives and in the campaign. What they did from here on out would mean everything.

Chasten felt all eyes on him as Agent Maxwell concluded her briefing. He knew that the decision to continue campaigning or not was entirely in his hands. Maybe he should have had doubts, maybe he should have reconsidered, but he didn’t. Pete looked at him expectantly and all Chasten did was nod. They understood each other perfectly.

All their talk about the power of the campaign to save lives, to nurture a sense of belonging, was real. Their promise at the beginning of this project, to be authentic to themselves and to have fun, still held. So horrors and homophobia be damned, they defiantly vowed to continue fighting for the country and for each other. They would not cancel any events. Chasten would not be hidden away. They would not back down.

The agent left and the team did too, moving just next door to start going over the new security procedures that would need to be implemented at all of their upcoming events.

Chasten and Pete held each other and, finally alone, there were tears of fear and relief.

They would not be silenced. Their marriage would not be downplayed. They would not hide their joy or affection or love.

The campaign would march on and so would they. All the way to the White House.

**Author's Note:**

> This is FICTION. Fiction, fiction, fiction. But it was inspired by reality. Specifically, this story is based on:  
1) [This article](https://www.chicagotribune.com/politics/elections/ct-pete-buttigieg-mom-interview-20190930-eh2i6xy73zbljb7yviydmufm7e-story.html) about the “ugly mail” Pete/Chasten/Anne/the campaign receives.  
2) Random knowledge (that may or may not be accurate) about when Secret Service protection kicks in for candidates.  
3) Videos and pictures from [the march](https://twitter.com/PriscillaWT/status/1190406139554541568) from the rally [to the venue](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeMRAqaaUPg) for the Liberty & Justice Dinner that clearly show the intense security woman walking next to Chasten.  
3) Real social media posts that showed Chasten was in South Bend on Saturday, November 9th while Pete was already on the bus in New Hampshire. Then suddenly Chasten was with Pete at every event on Sunday the 10th. Then Chasten wasn’t spotted at any events on the 11th (but in my imagination he was still with Pete all day, waiting for him on the bus). Then that night he and Pete were back in South Bend together at the venue where they got married, Pete’s arm wrapped protectively around Chasten (which is not a typical pose for the two of them, if you’ve been following them closely), while they listened to a concert put on by the band that performed at their wedding reception. In the alternate universe of my story, the whole weekend (including all the social media posts) was a silent, subtle Fuck You to the people who threatened them.
> 
> And finally, inspired by [Chastened](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chastened/pseuds/Chastened), who expertly deploys links to real social media posts in support of their incredible story [Longest Way Round](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20633912/chapters/48997736), I humbly submit for your perusal the posts that filled in the timeline for this story for me:
> 
> Saturday, November 9th:  
[Chasten was in South Bend with Buddy](https://www.instagram.com/p/B4p-YHthmuS/) while Pete was [already on the bus in New Hampshire.](https://twitter.com/DJJudd/status/1193205256534077443)
> 
> Sunday, November 10th:  
\- [At Polly's Pancake Parlor together](https://twitter.com/Chas10Buttigieg/status/1193543319604924416)  
\- [On a walking tour](https://twitter.com/Rizzuti09/status/1193589332310810625/photo/1) of Littleton and at [a candy store together](https://twitter.com/amandawgolden/status/1193556058712813569)  
\- [At a canvas kickoff in Claremont together](https://twitter.com/DJJudd/status/1193602392148848640)  
\- [At a townhall in Walpole together](https://twitter.com/amandawgolden/status/1193637771849687040)  
\- [At Dairy Queen for date night together](https://www.instagram.com/p/B4tXD0cBoZi/)
> 
> Monday, November 11th:  
[Together at their wedding venue in South Bend](https://twitter.com/Chas10Buttigieg/status/1194082178176565248) for a concert by the band that played at their reception


End file.
